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May 23, 2011

G47: Cleveland 3, Red Sox 2

Daniel Bard blew his second save of the year, allowing an inherited runner to score with one out in the eighth, then gave up a run of his own, as Cleveland took a 3-2 lead. With one out in the ninth, singles by J.D. Drew and Jed Lowrie put the potential tying run on third base, but Carl Crawford -- who had singled and scored Boston's first run and homered for its second -- grounded into a game-ending 463 double play.

Buchholz (7.1-4-2-2-4, 94) and Masterson (7.2-4-2-2-3, 112) were evenly matched -- and both pitched well despite a rain delay of 61 minutes at the start of the game. In the eighth, after Buchholz allowed a single to Jack Hannahan and pinch-runner Adam Everett took second on Austin Kearns's groundout, Bard came in to face pinch-hitter Carlos Santana.

Bard got Santana to foul out to third, but Michael Brantley lined an RBI-single to right to tie the game. (It was the first inherited runner that Bard has allowed to score this season; he's now stranded eight of nine.) Asdrubal Cabrera, who had homered in the fourth, doubled to left-center for the go-ahead run.

Dustin Pedroia was injured in the eighth inning and had to leave the game. He was on first when Adrian Gonzalez singled to right. Pedroia tripped rounding second base, got his feet tangled, and fell. He crawled back to the bag, but was very slow to get up. He seemed unable to put much weight on his left foot/ankle, and Drew Sutton ran for him and finished the game at second base.

The Blue Jays beat the Yankees 7-3 and the Tigers beat the Rays 6-3, so the Red Sox remain 0.5 GB; Toronto is now 1.5 GB.

Buchholz has pitched seven innings in each of his last two starts and has allowed only two runs in his last 20.2 innings. In four May starts, he has a 1.40 ERA.

Masterson has allowed only one run in five of his nine starts this season. He has a 2.52 ERA and 1.22 WHIP. His walk rate is the lowest of his career and he has given up only one home run in 60.2 innings.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia is 7-for-18 (.389) in his last five games, with one double and three home runs:

I'm feeling more comfortable. As soon as I managed to slow things down, I've been putting good at-bats together. ... At the beginning of the season I was pressing a little bit, trying to go out and hit everything as hard as I could. ... [Now] I'm not trying to pull everything, I'm trying to put it in the big part of the park, and good things happen.

Notes: Spiders have the best record in baseball and are 18-4 at home.Red Sox won 8 of 9 and 11 of 13.Youkilis has hit in 10 straight games: 15-of-37 (.405/.489/.811), with 8 extra-base hits, 13 RBIs and 6 BB.Lowrie's .810 OPS is 4th among all MLB shortstops.

Remy and Don love Masterson's wife, and she gave them cookies tonight like she used to. (Don ate both chocolate chip before Remy saw the bag.)

The reason I liked him was that he was just a normal dude when he talked, did not speak in cliches. And was just a nice guy. Didn't like the Jesus stuff but you're gonna have to deal with that with almost all these guys.

Judging by the fact that even a switch hitter who's batting a thousand lefty wouldn't hit lefty against a lefty, I'd say it's because they're just always more comfortable facing the opposite, and it trumps how well they do on whichever side. ?

bert singled to right, pedroia went from first to second, rounded second, but tripped over the bag and his feet got tangled up, and he fell. dove back to the bag, looked like he hurt his left foot or ankle. had trouble putting weight on it.

I am having technical difficulties with Blogger. I tracked to down to a corrupted cookie and deleted it. However now I am getting the internal error message from Blogger when I try to post via my Google account.